Dictionary of Literary Biography on Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson's universally acknowledged importance as a statesman has tended to overshadow his very substantial contributions to American literature. He was the penman of the American Revolution who, more than any other single person, created the characteristic language of the new American experiment in representative democracy. He gave clear, definitive articulation to the concept of natural (as distinguished from civil) rights, to the ideas of both civil and religious liberty, to the concept of minimal government, and to the preference for a rural agricultural citizenry over urban industrialism. Perceiving the need for an educated citizenry if democracy were to work, he advocated an aristocracy of virtue and talent over the "tinsel aristocracy" of inherited wealth and privilege. Jefferson was also an early advocate for the study of Old English, for the acceptance of a changing, adaptive English language, and for the development of a specifically American English. He...